OBJECTIVETo determine the clinical effects of preventing dental fear (DF) by pre-operation-education or local anesthesia method during the process of tooth filling.

METHODS150 school children, aged 7 to 12, participated present study. All of them suffered from occlusal caries on their mandibular first permanent molars. They were divided into 3 equal groups, and each had 50, 25 boys and 25 girls. Group1 (pre-operation-education): taking about 1 hour to show them science and educational video tape on caries, then, clinic environment, including machine and instruments, and answering their questions; Group2 (local anesthesia): about 15 minutes before treatment, injecting 1.8 ml of 2% lidocaine for local anesthesia; Group3 (blank): without any measurements for DF. After that, all subjects accepted same filling treatment as usual. DF of each case was evaluated by 3 evaluators blindly based on venham's clinical ratings of anxiety and cooperative.

RESULTSSignificant difference was found between groups (0.57 +/- 0.59, 0.83 +/- 0.66, 1.05 +/- 0.68, H = 18.646, P = 0.0001), also in DF rate (10%, 18% and 42%, chi(2) = 15.5031, P = 0.0004). But not between groups 1 and 2.

CONCLUSIONDuring decayed tooth filling treatment, pre-operation-education is better than that of local anesthesia method, in DF prevention.